Musee Orangerie Full Guide

The Orangerie is a quiet and mysterious gallery at the far end of the Tuileries which was once a royal greenhouse for the king’s orange trees. The gallery is located just off Concord and overlooking the Philae obelisk from which Champollion deciphered most of the hieroglyphs. The gallery is an easy 15-minute stroll from the Louvre on the Tuileries and just across the Seine from the Orsay via the footbridge. The Louvre is an ocean of works of art, Orsay is a sea, and the Orangerie is a tiny pond but of the most picturesque kind. Not sprawling like the Louvre, or showy like the Orsay, but an inconspicuous outcrop of concrete nestled among the citrus trees. Some call it the Temple of Impressionism and impress it does! The purpose-built gallery contains two oval rooms whose dimensions were tailor-made to fit Monet’s iconic wall-length works of water lilies. Together the rooms that holds…